home was mine no longer. Those among my friends who know the history of
my boyhood understand to some extent my loathing for the cards and dice.
It is perhaps unreasonable,--I might be the first to deem it so in any
other man,--but when I count up the woe they brought my mother,--father
and husband slaves to the same frenzy,--how they wrecked her life and
embittered it, my passion rises in my throat to choke me. Never did I
hate them more than in the days which followed; for they had made me
outcast, and what the future held for me, I could not guess. The question
was answered of a sudden a week later, when there came from my
grandfather a curt note bidding me be sent to Riverview. It was decided
at once that I must go. I myself looked forward to the change with a
boy's blind longing for adventure, and said farewell to the man who had
been so much to me with a willingness I wince to think upon.




CHAPTER VI

I AM TREATED TO A SURPRISE


The rain was falling dismally as the coach in which I had made the
journey rolled up the drive to Riverview, and I caught but a glimpse of
the house as I was rushed up the steps and into the wide hall. A lady
dressed in a loose green gown was seated in an easy-chair before the open
fire, and she did not rise as I entered, doubtless because her lap was
full of knitting.

"Gracious, how wet the child is!" she cried, looking me over critically.